Have you ever wondered what barbers and hair stylists do with all the hair they sweep up after giving their clients a hair cut?
According to Brandy Atkinson, of Green Circle Salons, the majority of all hair clippings, hair product chemicals, or other waste from a haircut or hairstyling session, end up in a landfill or being washed down the sink.
“Everyday in the North America salons throw out 42,000 pounds of hair clipping and those clippings go to the landfill where they create methane gas,” she said, during a visit to Barrhead Composite High School (BCHS) on Tuesday, Feb. 23.
Atkinson was at BCHS to certify the school’s cosmetology department salon as eco friendly.
To receive Green Circle Salons certification the school learned how to separate their waste products, including hair, so that they can be disposed of in an environmentally responsible way.
“Basically we are a recycling company for saloon specific waste,” she said, adding Green Circle Salons has found a way to recycle and repurpose a wide variety of salon type waste including hair, foils, colour-tubes, papers and plastics, as well as diverting excess hair chemicals from being rinsed down the drain. “
For example Green Circle Salons uses hair clippings to make oil booms.
“Hair is a natural fibre that is absorbent so it makes perfect sense to use it for oil spills,” she said. “After all, the commercial booms have propylene in it which is a petroleum product. So why would you use an oil based product to soak up an oil spill?”
Another product the Green Circle Salons has created is a board that can be used in the construction industry.
“It is 95 per cent hair and five per cent bio resin and it is like slate and it is as hard as carbon fibre. We are hoping to get that out to market very soon,” Atkinson said, adding the company is working on certifying the product.
When it becomes available to the public the material could be used to make anything from flooring to recycling bins, she said.
Jenn Teefy, a cosmetology teacher at Barrhead Composite High School, just recently found out about the program through a friend who works at a salon in Edmonton. Teefy is replacing regular cosmetology teacher Lori Sagbo, who is currently on maternity leave.
“I know when I first found out I would be returning to a salon environment I was a little bit nervous because of all the chemicals there are,” she said. “So when I found out about the program I was super excited and I am so happy to be able to offer something like this.”
